This table displays the selected game’s current values on four BGG outcomes (UsersRated, Average, GeekRating, Weight) along with my predictive model(s) estimated values for where these games are likely to end up.
Published | ID | Name | Type | UserRatings | Average | GeekRating | Weight |
2021 | Current | 70 | 7.01 | 5.55 | 3.75 | ||
Estimated | 600 | 7.42 | 5.98 | 3.14 |
To see more information about the game on boardgamegeek, click on the game’s ID or Name to go straight to the game’s profile page.
Description |
Factory 42 is a Euro-style board game for 2-5 players. The game tells the story of the workweek of Marxistic dwarves in a steampunk industrial setting, placing the player in the role of factory Overseers. It combines worker placement and a cube tower to create a resource management puzzle. Factory 42 is a cutthroat competitive game with elements of co-operation and deals involving Economics, Fantasy, Industry and Negotiation with a pinch of satire, but not too much to make it a Humor game. It satisfyingly blends two-fold tensions: camaraderie forged in shared goals, and the opportunistic trampling of temporary competition. A tight game of glancing blows and communal glory creating a wicked blend of sharp elbows and shared ambition. Visually, Factory 42 takes its influence from 1920’s Soviet Union propaganda, fantasy literature and elements of pre-WWI Prussian decor. |
Information on the game’s designers, artists, families, mechanics and categories from BGG.
Published | ID | Name | Publisher(s) | Designer(s) | Artist(s) | Categories | Families | Mechanics |
2021 | Dragon Dawn Productions | Timo Multamäki | Lars Munck | Fantasy | Components: Drop Tower | Cube Tower | ||
Industry / Manufacturing | Crowdfunding: Kickstarter | Negotiation | ||||||
Setting: World of Zanziar | Semi-Cooperative Game | |||||||
Theme: Mining | Victory Points as a Resource | |||||||
Theme: Steampunk | Worker Placement | |||||||
For the full profile of the selected game, click on the links in the table or go to https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/314125
For each of the predictions above, I used models that were trained on historical boardgamegeek data in order to predict the selected game. How did the model(s) arrive at their predictions? The following plot displays Shapley values to indicate what features were most influential for the model’s predictions. Anything in blue increased the model’s predictions, anything in red decreased the model’s predictions.
What games are similar to Factory 42? I compare the selected game to every other game on boardgamegeek based on its mechanics, playing time, complexity, and game type. The tables below display the games which had the most similar data to Factory 42. The reported similarity is the cosine similarity between the selected game and all other games published before 2021.
This similarity score ranges from -1 to 1, where similarity of 1 indicates that games are exactly identical (a game will have a score of 1 with itself).
Note: This analysis does not look at a game’s ratings on BGG, publisher, artist, or designer - it focuses on finding similar games based on how they play, not how they are rated or by their theme.
The table below displays games with the most similar data to Factory 42. Click on a game’s ID or Name to go straight to its profile on boardgamegeek.
Rank | Published | ID | Name | Similarity | GeekRating | Average | Weight | UserRatings |
-- | 2021 | 1.00 | 5.55 | 7.01 | 3.14 | 70 | ||
1 | 2013 | 0.99 | 7.52 | 7.76 | 3.41 | 16,244 | ||
2 | 2012 | 0.98 | 6.26 | 7.02 | 3.73 | 1,703 | ||
3 | 2019 | 0.98 | 6.13 | 7.27 | 3.08 | 985 | ||
4 | 2020 | 0.98 | 5.72 | 7.18 | 3.55 | 273 | ||
5 | 2015 | 0.97 | 5.52 | 6.69 | 3.00 | 42 | ||
6 | 2015 | 0.97 | 5.58 | 6.59 | 2.50 | 138 | ||
7 | 2015 | 0.96 | 5.54 | 6.03 | 3.65 | 150 | ||
8 | 2015 | 0.96 | 5.53 | 6.52 | 2.86 | 48 | ||
9 | 2016 | 0.96 | 5.83 | 6.92 | 3.21 | 612 | ||
10 | 2017 | 0.95 | 5.54 | 6.22 | 3.00 | 89 | ||
11 | 2013 | 0.95 | 5.55 | 6.52 | 2.73 | 98 | ||
12 | 2016 | 0.95 | 5.55 | 6.39 | 3.29 | 145 | ||
13 | 2020 | 0.95 | 5.55 | 7.17 | 3.00 | 61 | ||
14 | 2013 | 0.94 | 5.67 | 6.97 | 3.40 | 235 | ||
15 | 2020 | 0.94 | 5.57 | 6.71 | 2.56 | 129 | ||
16 | 2010 | 0.94 | 6.92 | 7.48 | 4.21 | 4,636 | ||
17 | 2014 | 0.94 | 5.71 | 6.72 | 2.33 | 364 | ||
18 | 2017 | 0.94 | 5.53 | 6.91 | 2.75 | 70 | ||
19 | 2017 | 0.93 | 6.09 | 7.17 | 3.14 | 1,027 | ||
20 | 2015 | 0.93 | 5.94 | 7.23 | 3.69 | 594 | ||
21 | 2016 | 0.92 | 5.69 | 6.73 | 2.71 | 376 | ||
22 | 2019 | 0.92 | 5.60 | 7.12 | 3.00 | 113 | ||
23 | 2013 | 0.92 | 5.58 | 6.40 | 3.20 | 214 | ||
24 | 2000 | 0.92 | 5.68 | 6.14 | 2.62 | 688 | ||
25 | 2013 | 0.92 | 5.51 | 5.96 | 3.44 | 45 |
Click on the ID or Name for any game to go its profile page on boardgamegeek.
What games are similar to Factory 42 while also being highly rated by the boardgamegeek community? In this table I multiply every neighboring game’s similarity score by its GeekRating. The resulting score is an attempt to balance these two quantities.
Rank | Published | ID | Name | Score | Similarity | GeekRating | Average | Weight | UserRatings |
-- | 2021 | 5.55 | 1.00 | 5.55 | 7.01 | 3.14 | 70 | ||
1 | 2013 | 7.43 | 0.99 | 7.52 | 7.76 | 3.41 | 16,244 | ||
2 | 2016 | 6.73 | 0.89 | 7.53 | 7.88 | 3.30 | 11,296 | ||
3 | 2007 | 6.55 | 0.91 | 7.20 | 7.53 | 3.13 | 10,013 | ||
4 | 2010 | 6.53 | 0.94 | 6.92 | 7.48 | 4.21 | 4,636 | ||
5 | 2016 | 6.51 | 0.87 | 7.47 | 8.16 | 4.06 | 5,221 | ||
6 | 2013 | 6.37 | 0.90 | 7.08 | 7.64 | 3.59 | 5,067 | ||
7 | 2019 | 6.28 | 0.92 | 6.85 | 7.66 | 4.18 | 3,005 | ||
8 | 2002 | 6.22 | 0.79 | 7.83 | 7.96 | 3.28 | 66,344 | ||
9 | 2020 | 6.22 | 0.82 | 7.54 | 8.59 | 4.36 | 3,614 | ||
10 | 2017 | 6.18 | 0.87 | 7.09 | 7.65 | 2.86 | 5,221 | ||
11 | 2012 | 6.15 | 0.98 | 6.26 | 7.02 | 3.73 | 1,703 | ||
12 | 2012 | 6.05 | 0.79 | 7.62 | 7.75 | 2.46 | 49,784 | ||
13 | 2019 | 6.02 | 0.98 | 6.13 | 7.27 | 3.08 | 985 | ||
14 | 2015 | 6.02 | 0.89 | 6.77 | 7.86 | 3.34 | 2,070 | ||
15 | 2014 | 5.96 | 0.82 | 7.29 | 7.82 | 4.36 | 6,304 | ||
16 | 2011 | 5.92 | 0.87 | 6.83 | 7.23 | 3.05 | 6,148 | ||
17 | 2013 | 5.88 | 0.81 | 7.23 | 7.57 | 3.74 | 9,512 | ||
18 | 2019 | 5.86 | 0.89 | 6.58 | 7.45 | 2.91 | 2,302 | ||
19 | 2020 | 5.85 | 0.90 | 6.51 | 7.50 | 3.73 | 1,869 | ||
20 | 2015 | 5.78 | 0.88 | 6.53 | 7.30 | 3.26 | 2,351 | ||
21 | 2009 | 5.75 | 0.85 | 6.73 | 7.23 | 3.23 | 4,402 | ||
22 | 2015 | 5.74 | 0.81 | 7.06 | 7.67 | 3.78 | 4,547 | ||
23 | 2017 | 5.68 | 0.93 | 6.09 | 7.17 | 3.14 | 1,027 | ||
24 | 2009 | 5.67 | 0.90 | 6.32 | 7.03 | 3.55 | 2,049 | ||
25 | 2013 | 5.66 | 0.81 | 6.96 | 7.59 | 4.29 | 4,177 |
I first ran a dimension reduction method (PCA) to identify the main points of variation for games on BGG. The first 25 components explained roughly 50% of the overall variation in the dataset, so I computed the cosine similarity between every game’s score on these 25 components.
The following plot shows every game on BGG plotted on the first two principal components of variation. I then highlight where the selected game and its nearest neighbors fall on these first two components.
Similarity scores are based on 25 principal components - the next table displays the selected game and its neighbors profiles on each of these components.
What are these components? The following plot shows which features contribute the most to each component.